1. The Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to backing up data and/or restoring data. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to systems and methods for backing up data and/or to restoring portions of sub-sets of the backed up data.
2. The Relevant Technology
In computing systems today, there is a need to ensure that data is protected. Because data can become lost or corrupted for many reasons, the data can be protected by backing up the data on a regular basis. Backing up data not only protects the data from loss or corruption, backing up data also provides a way to view the data at different points in time.
When backing up data, the amount of data being backed up can vary widely. In many examples, applications use large databases or virtual hard disks. Because these types of data can be large, some backup systems backup data use streaming formats or other proprietary formats such as a sequential backup stream.
When a streaming format is used to backup data, the data is encapsulated into a series of records. One consequence of using the streaming format, however, is that the ability to locate specific data in the backup is much more difficult. This is due in part to the encapsulation of data in the sequential format that occurs during the backup operation.
When restoring data from a sequential backup stream, the process can require many hours, especially where the data set is large. While this cannot be avoided when restoring the entire data set, it is often only necessary to restore a small subset of the data. Unfortunately, because the location of specific data is difficult to identify in the sequential backup stream, the recovery of the small subset of the data requires excessive time and cost.